161 The Faceless Ones: Episode Five

EPISODE: The Faceless Ones: Episode Five
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 161
STORY NUMBER: 035
TRANSMITTED: 06 May 1967
WRITER: David Ellis & Malcolm Hulke
DIRECTOR: Gerry Mill
SCRIPT EDITOR: Gerry Davis
PRODUCER: Innes Lloyd
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Faceless Ones
TELESNAPS: The Faceless Ones: Episode Five

Blade and Ann leave the plane taking the items they've collected with them. Jamie emerges from his hiding place and follows them. 2 of the misshapen aliens enter and start offloading the luggage. Jamie sees the objects been deposited in a room: he enters and finds human bodies shrunk in drawers. Ann enters and captures Jamie. The Doctor coerces "Meadows" into revealing himself. Meadows explains they come from a planet that has suffered a disaster which has removed their identity. They are duplicating humans but the originals are safe and those of the airport staff are still on the airport somewhere. With "Meadows" help Sam is freed, but the fake Nurse Pinto is killed and the real one revived. Jamie meets Crossland on the space station, but this isn't the police officer, it's his duplicate, the alien Director. The Doctor & Nurse Pinto board the last Chameleon jet flight of the season with all the airport staff duplicates. Meanwhile the Commandant and his staff search for the originals. The Doctor & Pinto arrive at the spacestation, where Jamie too has been duplicated but are apprehended by Blade.

And finally the why and how of what's happening. The mystery is done, so now we move into a more urgent phase of the story as the Doctor tries to rescue the abducted humans.

Lots of familiar faces in this story: Sam's played by a young Tarpaulin Collins. She's very much seen as a potential new companion: the Liverpool connection to the still popular Beetles - but the actress turned the show down when offered an extended run. A long acting career, including the starring role in Shirley Valentine would eventually bring her full circle to become of the few actors to appear in old and new Doctor Who. Chris Tranchell, playing Jenkins, has already been in the Massacre and will return for Invasion of Time by which point he'd be doing Play School. Wanda Ventham, playing Jean Rook, is a few years shy of her role in UFO as Virginia Lake but she'll be back in Image of the Fendahl as well as Time and the Rani which also features Donald Pickering, who plays Captain Blade following an earlier appearance in The Keys of Marinus. Bernard Kay, as Inspector Crossland, is on his THIRD Who role after Tyler in Dalek Invasion of Earth and Saladdin in The Crusade, He's not done yet either and returns as Coldwell in Colony in Space.